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Walking is a movement that defines me. I walk to school. I
walk home. I walk across the field and back again. I look
up at the treetops and reach for the fruit. I walk to the
mountain stream; its splashing fills the valley from the
bottom up with invisible bubbles like a tub filled with a
foam of noise. My thoughts are twisty daydreams,
conjectures about Death who’s peeling off his old skin and
still isn’t sure when he’ll show himself, when he’ll show
everything in its true light. Pretensions.
It’s always different with the children in my schoolbooks.
There’s never anyone like me. I consider withdrawing from
childhood because its roof has grown leaky, because I run
the risk of foundering with it. I also think that much more
has happened to me than could possibly be good for any
childhood and that I already should have changed into
something else, although I have no notion what that might
be.
And there are still those words standing around in pretty
crinolines, balancing like ballerinas on the tips of their toes,
and rumors of being sent to another school. These
thoughts seep into me like a clear carillon and I imagine
how changing schools could cut me off from these
surroundings.
Secret thoughts become vain. Timid, burnished thoughts
begin circling in my head. They smell of lilies of the valley
and look like they’ve just emerged from a beauty bath.
They wear princess dresses and fur-lined high-heeled shoes.